The crackdown came after two police officers were injured when a van crashed into an RBT site earlier this year. As a result of the collision, one officer had his foot and part of his lower leg amputated and another suffered a broken leg. The driver walked away unharmed. He admitted that he had been looking at his phone before the accident.

Drivers were also snapped with both hands off the wheel and in the air, with pets in their laps or unrestrained, doing their makeup, and reaching for objects.

But the endemic illegal use of mobile phones while driving is what police and road safety advocates are the most concerned about.

One Task – one of several companies that has installed the state-of-the-art cameras, has shared disturbing snaps of drivers, and says it estimates that between 5 and 7% of drivers in every city use phones while driving at high speeds.

The company’s footage also showed 4% to 6.2% of P-Plate drivers illegally using phones while driving.

In NSW between 2012 to 2017, 184 crashes were reported to have involved illegal mobile phone use. They are said to have resulted in seven deaths and 105 injuries.

Indeed, research suggests that if you text while driving, your risk of a collision during the act increases 23-fold – simply because you’ve taken your eyes (and your mind) off the road for too long.

National issue

The Western Australian government has trialled “texting bays” in an effort to get drivers to pull over and use their phones safely.

Meanwhile in Queensland, a recent survey suggested that 70% of respondents had admitted to learning how to cover a mobile with their hands in order to avoid police detection.

And in Victoria, the state’s Transport Accident Commission hired an Academy Award-winning filmmaker to expose the reality of mobile phone use. The documentary involved cameras being installed into the cars of five young people (with their permission) over a ten-day period. Each considered themselves a good driver who obeyed the road rules, but the results told a different story. All drivers repeatedly looked down at their phones, text messaged, and one even took selfies while driving.